The invention is the in the field of money-operated phonographs and more specifically in the field of control systems for phonographs which play compact discs.
There have long been known in the prior art money responsive automatic phonographs commonly known as xe2x80x9cjukeboxes.xe2x80x9d These devices of the prior art normally play selections from 45 rpm records which, in response to the deposit of money and to making of a selection by use of a keyboard or the like, extract the record carrying the desired selection from a magazine and place it with the proper side up on the player turntable.
Control systems for automatic phonographs of the type described hereinabove incorporate a number of auxiliary features. They include various accounting features which record the amount of money which has been deposited in the machine, the number of times each selection has been made and the like. By use of this information, arrangements have been provided whereby the customer may operate a particular button to play the most popular selection, for example.
In addition to the most popular selection, some jukeboxes of the prior art incorporate a feature by virtue of which a selection is automatically played after a predetermined idle period. A manually operable switch may be provided to permit the machine to be set for a period of free play during which no money need to be deposited in order to make a selection.
There have recently come into widespread use phonographs which incorporate lasers for reading music coded on a disc in digital form. While these compact discs are very rugged devices, sometimes they develop problems similar to those which may be encountered in vinyl records. Skips and dropouts are not uncommon CD faults. Sometimes the CD player may not be able to read the disc at all. Control systems of the type discussed hereinabove make no provision for cancelling a selection in the event that the record incorporates a major defect. Neither do they provide any means for recording such defects for later review to permit defective records or discs to be replaced.
One object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which is more sophisticated than are control systems of the prior art.
Another object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which is especially adapted for use with a CD player.
A further object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which automatically cancels a selection after a predetermined number of skips.
Still another object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which automatically cancels a selection after a predetermined maximum skip time has elapsed.
Still another object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which records all skips and cancellations for later review.
A still further object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system having an autoplay feature which can be set for days of the week, hours of the day, intervals between autoplays and selected or random autoplays.
Yet another object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which has a free play feature which can be set for the days of the week and times of the days.
An additional object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which can be set to clear unplayed selections after a period of time following turnoff of the phonograph.
Yet another object of our invention is to provide an automatic phonograph control system which affords a most popular selection display of particular tracks of a CD disc.